2016 Fellows

2013 KIPLINGER FELLOWS

Ujjwal Acharya

Ujjwal Acharya is a leading online journalist in Nepal with a history of being pioneer blogger. A post-graduate in mass communication and journalism, he voluntarily set up a sports website for cricket in 2001 and championed the blogging for democracy in 2004/5. He also helped set up Nepal’s premier news website, myrepublica.com, from scratch leaving a comfortable job of the sports bureau co-ordinator at The Kathmandu Post daily, where he worked as print journalists in various positions for eight years. An active social media user, journalism teacher/trainer and advocate of freedom of expression, Ujjwal chairs the Digital Media Committee at the Federation of Nepali Journalists – the umbrella organization of 8,000 Nepali journalists. Twitter:@UjjwalAcharya

Lion Calandra

Lion Calandra is an award-winning journalist who joined FoxNews.com as a senior editor in 2010. Before joining Fox News, Lion spent 18 years as an editor at the New York Daily News, where she served as a member of the paper’s Editorial Board. Prior to joining the Daily News, Lion honed her editing and writing skills at The Wall Street Journal, Crain’s New York Business and the Columbia Journalism Review. Her writing has appeared on FoxNews.com, thecrimereport.org, and in the New York Daily News, The New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor and Columbia Journalism Review. Lion has received a Guggenheim Fellowship from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and is a Jennings Fellow with the National Constitution Center. Twitter:@LionCalandra

Raju Chebium

Raju Chebium covers Congress for Gannett. He tracks the House and Senate delegations from Alabama, Colorado, South Carolina and Virginia, and issues important to those states. Before joining Gannett in 2001, he was a newsman for The Associated Press and the legal-affairs writer for CNN.com. He has reported from his native India, Appalachia and New Jersey, and has covered the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court case, the 2004 Democratic and Republican conventions, the 2012 GOP convention, and was the first journalist to alert the world to the 1996 ValuJet crash in the Florida Everglades. He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Florida A&M University and a master’s in government from Johns Hopkins University. Twitter: @rchebium

Hena Cuevas

Hena Cuevas is a correspondent for the Univision network, based in LA. She has won the Emmy, Golden Mike, Imagen, and Genesis Awards. She has also trained journalists in Bolivia, Guatemala, Peru, Panama, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Indonesia. A Fulbright scholar, Cuevas has a B.S. from Iowa State University and an M.A. from the University of Minnesota. She worked as a producer/correspondent for CNN, as well as assignment editor and anchor for CNN EN ESPAÑOL. She has also been a US-based correspondent for stations in Venezuela, Chile and Spain. She was born and raised in Panama City, Panama. Twitter:@Henac

Nigel Duara

Nigel Duara is a reporter in the Portland, Ore., bureau of The Associated Press, with a concentration on law enforcement, courts and terrorism. Duara has spent two years in Oregon writing enterprise stories on medical marijuana, an attempted bomb plot and the secret files of the Boy Scouts of America. He was previously the wire service’s correspondent in Iowa City. Before joining the AP, Duara covered a host of beats at the Montgomery Advertiser and was the Des Moines Register’s night cops reporter. He is a 2005 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism. Twitter: @nigelduara.

Amie Ferris-Rotman

Amie Ferris-Rotman is senior correspondent at Reuters in Afghanistan, where she focuses on the struggles Afghan women face 11 years into the NATO-led war. She joined Reuters in 2006, earning a spot on its competitive training scheme. She then worked in the Moscow bureau for five years, first as an energy reporter and later as political correspondent, covering the Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus. Before joining Reuters, she was a steel reporter for an online trade magazine in London. She has reported from 10 countries, and holds a B.A. and M.A. in Russian Studies from University College, London. Twitter:@Amiefr_Reuters

Roseanne Gerin

Roseanne Gerin is a senior news editor at China Radio International in Beijing. where she edits reports for CRI’s English-language website, mobile platform and broadcast programs. She formerly was an editorial consultant at Beijing Review magazine, where she worked with the business and world news teams and provided journalism training. Prior to moving to China, Gerin was a staff writer at Washington Technology magazine. Before her Washington stint, she worked in Poland at the Warsaw Business Journal as the paper’s IT, Internet and telecom reporter, and later moved up to news editor, managing editor and editor in chief. She holds an M.S. in Business & Economics Journalism from Boston University, an M.A. in history from Villanova University and a B.A. in history from Loyola College.

Jan Goodwin

Jan Goodwin is an award-winning author and writer for national publications, including The New York Times, The Nation, Harper’s Bazaar, Discover, Real Simple, Good Housekeeping, Ladies’ Home Journal, Glamour, Reader’s Digest, New York Magazine, Self and Utne. Article topics include investigative reportage, social justice, conflict and human rights, medicine and health. Goodwin is the author of two books: Price of Honor, which examines how Islamic extremism is affecting the lives of women (published by Little, Brown, and paperback by Plume-Penguin.) PoH is a New York Times “notable book,” and a course requirement at many colleges. For her first book, Caught in the Crossfire (E.P. Dutton), Goodwin spent three months with the Afghan mujahideen behind enemy lines during the protracted Afghan war. Twitter: @jangoodwin

David Gurien

David Gurien is a veteran television and online journalist with extensive experience in local and international newswriting and production. He is a senior writer and news editor for CNN International whose work reaches an average daily viewership of a quarter-billion people worldwide. He also has written international news and feature articles and photo essays for CNN.com, the world’s second-most viewed news website. Through the U.S. State Department’s Speakers and Specialists program, Gurien has taught journalism ethics and practice to journalists in emerging countries including Turkmenistan, Slovenia and Botswana. In 2012, Gurien was the recipient of an East-West Center Asia-Pacific Journalism fellowship to Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea. Gurien holds a BA in English from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Andrea Hsu

Andrea Hsu is a producer with NPR’s All Things Considered in Washington DC. Since 2002, she’s worked to bring news and information to a national audience, crafting sound-rich pieces from around the country and places abroad. She’s brought listeners stories about healthcare in rural Mozambique, about the growing carbon footprint of Chinese families, and about extraordinary everyday people. In 2008, Andrea led the NPR team that covered the massive earthquake in southwest China. In 2011, she was the supervising producer of the All Things Considered series on women and childbirth. In addition to her work as a producer, Andrea also does her own on-air reporting and takes half-decent photographs as well. Twitter: @xuzhuping

Martha Kang

Martha Kang‘s aim as a journalist has been two-fold: to become a better storyteller and to adapt early to the changes reshaping the news industry. Early signs of the newspaper’s demise led her to study broadcast news instead. She thrived as a TV news writer and producer until Web news emerged. Martha became a Web journalist in 2006, and immersed herself in the study of new media. Her self-driven efforts were rewarded last year when she was chosen to spearhead her newsroom’s social media strategy. Martha is dedicated to the pursuit of truth and to the preservation of the role of journalism as a pillar of democracy as it transitions into the next era. Twitter: @martha_kang

Henrick Karoliszyn

Henrick Karoliszyn is an award-winning staff writer at the New York Daily News. Since 2008, he has reported the biggest crime and breaking news stories throughout New York City. He has also been sent around the country for national stories. In 2009, he was awarded the Society of Silurians Award. In 2012, he was awarded a fellowship at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a Jon Davidoff Journalism Award from Wesleyan University. He has also conducted the most jailhouse interviews of any reporter since joining the newspaper. Prior to the News he held jobs at Rolling Stone Magazine and the New York Times. He is originally from Montreal but raised in Queens, New York. Prior to journalism, he was a professional surfer. He lives in Brooklyn. Twitter:@Henrick_AK

Sayli Udas Mankikar

Nine years ago, when Sayli Udas Mankikar started off as a city beat reporter, she set a goal of becoming an editor. She is now an assistant editor at Hindustan Times, India’s leading daily broadsheet with a 3.8 million circulation, where she writes and investigates on issues related to government policy and politics from Mumbai. Having completing her post graduation in journalism at UK’s University of Westminster in 2003, going back to her homeland and pursuing issues related to public affairs, government policy and politics was a natural transition. In 2009, she won the prestigious Ramnath Goenka Award for her crusade in saving green open spaces from developers in Mumbai. Twitter: @Saylitweets

Issa A. Mansaray

Issa A. Mansaray is the founder of the Africa Institute for International Reporting (AIIR), a nonprofit organization to support journalists and media education in developing countries. Issa, a strong advocate of press freedom and human rights, is also editor of The AfricaPaper – www.theafricapaper.com, with a national and international readership. Born in Sierra Leone, he has traveled through Africa, Europe, and the United States reporting on press freedom, socioeconomic developments and human rights violations. He is an award-winning journalist and a frequent contributor to various international and national magazines and newspapers. He has a BA, International Relations, Webster University, and an MS, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, New York. Twitter: @theafricapaper

Michael J. Mishak

Michael J. Mishak is a statehouse reporter for the Los Angeles Times, where he covers California politics. His reporting prompted Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration to write the state’s first-ever rules to regulate fracking; another story revealed how Brown fired regulators who challenged his demand to ease key rules for oil companies that contributed to his campaign. Before moving to Sacramento in 2010, Mishak covered politics and labor for the Las Vegas Sun, where he contributed to a Pulitzer Prize-winning series about construction worker deaths on the Strip. His reporting on the 2008 presidential campaign was honored by the Best of the West contest and the Nevada Press Association, which named him the state’s best young journalist. A Philadelphia native, Mishak graduated in 2002 from La Salle University. Twitter: @mjmishak

Manuel Moreno

Manuel Moreno is a professional online journalist with 12 years of experience. Since 2006, he has been editorial manager at NetMediaEurope, heading a team of 12 journalists at an online editorial that publishes six IT and economics websites in Europe, such as eWEEK, The Inquirer and Gizmodo. In 2009, he launched on his own TreceBits.com, the most important website about social media and digital journalism in Spanish, usually said to be the Spanish Mashable. He is also a contributor on radio stations and teacher of Journalism 2.0 in a business school. He is writing a book about social media journalism that will be published in 2013. He started his career at El Mundo newspaper, where he worked for sections, as Culture, Politics and also Elmundo.es from 2002 to 2006. Twitter: @TreceBits

Lee Ann O’Neal

Lee Ann O’Neal is a new media entrepreneur who helped found an investigative news website, Texas Watchdog, in 2008. She edits stories, creates graphics and does computer-assisted reporting for the award-winning site, online at www.texaswatchdog.org. Previously, Lee Ann worked as government and First Amendment editor for the Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times and reporter at the Tennessean in Nashville, where she covered City Hall and growth and development. She got her start in journalism at the Hustler, the student newspaper at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Lee Ann is from West Tennessee. Twitter:@leeannoneal

David Plazas

David Plazas is the engagement editor of The News-Press, which is owned by Gannett. He oversees digital journalism and social media, champions local content, and digital community engagement efforts, and serves on the editorial board. He has served on two corporate Gannett committees, one on diversity and the other on innovation. He was founding editor of the award-winning Gaceta Tropical, Southwest Florida’s first weekly Spanish-language newspaper. He was previously a reporter for The News-Press. Plazas holds a master’s in journalism and his bachelor’s, both from Northwestern University and an M.B.A. at Florida Gulf Coast University. He and his staff have received awards from the numerous journalism organizations. Twitter: @davidplazas

Marcia Pledger

Marcia Pledger has been a financial journalist for most of her 24 year career. Currently a reporter for the Plain Dealer who covers technology, she’s the author of “My Biggest Mistake,” a compilation of some the 400 businesses she’s featured. For the last decade she’s written a column sharing insights from entrepreneurs who reveal how they turned adversity into success, and recently launched a business etiquette blog exploring mistakes we all observe and occasionally commit. Marcia is a graduate of the University of Missouri who has served the National Association of Black Journalists as chapter founder and national board member. Twitter: @MarciaPledger

Pamela M. Prah

Pamela M. Prah has been a Washington, D.C., reporter for more than 25 years and an adjunct journalism teacher at American University since 2001. She has been a writer, editor, news aggregator and manager at Stateline.org for eight years where her stories about state elections were cited in The Washington Post,The Wall Street Journal and CBS. She has reported for Congressional Quarterly, Kiplinger, BNA, (now Bloomberg-BNA) and McGraw-Hill, where she covered business and labor from the White House, Capitol Hill and regulatory agencies. She has a master’s from Johns Hopkins University and a journalism degree from Ohio University. Twitter: @PamelaMPrah

Frances Robles

Frances Robles, the Miami Herald’s lead reporter on the Trayvon Martin case, covers South Florida and the Caribbean. Her multiplatform coverage ranged from Hugo Chavez’s cancer, baseball in Santo Domingo to the plight of critically ill children in Haiti. A former Central America correspondent, she was bureau chief in Bogotá, where she covered government collapses in four countries, a civil war and specialized in social justice issues. Robles was a member of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams and was a finalist for two more. The NYU grad was a 2004-2005 John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University. She was the programming chair for the 2011 and 2009 NAHJ national conventions and is currently the local chapter’s social media director. Twitter:@FrancesRobles

Andrew Tilghman

Andrew Tilghman is a Pentagon correspondent for the Military Times newspapers. He began covering the military community as an Iraq correspondent for the Stars and Stripes in 2005 and 2006. Prior to that, he was a reporter for the Houston Chronicle, the Times Union in Albany, New York and the Associated Press. A Columbia Journalism School grad, he won several awards for a 2010 investigative series on the rise in prescription drug use in the military, and its link to suicides and fatal drug overdoses, including the top prize from the Military Reporters & Editors journalism contest in 2011. Twitter: @andrewtilghman

Josh Voorhees

Josh Voorhees is an editor at Slate, where he writes about current affairs and runs the site’s news blog, The Slatest. Before joining the magazine, he reported on energy policy and politics for Politico and Greenwire. Before that, he covered courts and crime for a small South Carolina daily. His work has also been published by the New York Times and Scientific American, and he has been featured as a guest on public radio in the United States and abroad. He is a graduate of Davidson College and holds a certificate in technology and communication from the University of North Carolina’s journalism school. Twitter:@JoshVoorhees

Pamela Weintraub

Pamela Weintraub is executive editor at Discover Magazine, where she has worked since 2007. She top edits most of the issue and acquires and edits the bulk of the feature well. She is also author of Cure Unknown: Inside the Lyme Epidemic, published in 2008 by St. Martin’s Press and winner of the American Medical Writers Association Book Award, 2009. Prior to this, Weintraub was consulting features editor at Psychology Today, Executive Editor at MAMM, and Editor-in-Chief at OMNI, where she held a variety of titles for 16 years. She is the author or co-author of 16 books and has written hundreds of stories for national magazines. She was founding Editor-in-Chief of OMNI Internet, 1996-1998. Twitter: @pam3001